Legal drugs, deadly outcomes

A Los Angeles Times investigation has found that in nearly half of the accidental deaths from prescription drugs in four Southern California counties, the deceased had a doctor's prescription for at least one drug that caused or contributed to the death.A small cadre of doctors was associated with a disproportionate number of those fatal overdoses. Seventy-onemdash;0.1% of all practicing doctors in four countiesmdash;wrote prescriptions for drugs that caused or contributed to 298 deaths. That is 17% of the total linked to doctors' prescriptions. Each of those 71 physicians prescribed drugs to three or more patients who died. Four of the doctors had 10 or more patients who fatally overdosed.